This essay identifies and describes three ways of listening that are available to all human beings. Beforehand, we argue that the concept of “sound”, as borrowed from acoustics and commonly used in anthropology, is too vague and too limited. In order to be able to understand the full range of human auditory experiences as found in ethnography, as well as the social interactions which they afford, we propose a distinction of at least three postures of listening. We define these as “indexical”, “structural” and “enchanted”, by contrasting their interactional salience in various settings. The auditory “things” that exist for each of the three stances (their ontologies) are also shown to be different. This trichotomy provides a promising theoretical framework for some longstanding problems in anthropology. After discussing some critical questions and possible shortcomings of our model, we conclude by looking closely at one of these issues: the definition of “music” and its ethnographic relevance throughout the world.

In various societies around the world, certain sound practices are invested with the capacity to transform the psyches or bodies of listeners, with or without their consent. This article offers an overview of some of these theories. The analysis of the various principles of efficacy invoked shows that sounds sometimes appear as active principles (drugs or medicines), sometimes as facilitators of relations, and sometimes as social agents in their own right, thus indicating their polymorphous character. Taken together, these theories, along with the other contributions gathered in this volume, demonstrate that the forces which animate inspiring, captivating, enchanting or cathartic music are the same as those which, in a more obscure way, run through possession, alienation, enchantment and depressive ruminations.

The outcome of our collaboration with computer scientists working on deep learning techniques. The goal of the project was to check whether an "intelligent system" (say a computer) could learn "by itself" to discriminate the traditional modes (pathet) of Javanese gamelan and what clues it would deem relevant for that. Full text available here. My name is penultimate in the author’s list (these things matter sometimes).

This contribution describes how Roma professional musicians in Romania use electronic sound processing for live performances in various contexts. It focuses on four techniques – amplification, mixing, reverberation and echo – which are intimately linked in the practice of these musicians. The latter two effects are modeled on natural acoustic phenomena, but are used by the musicians to create sound environments with artificial, impossible or paradoxical properties. The article details how these techniques are used, in relation to the typical interactions between the musicians and their audiences. This leads to the argument that artificial echo and reverberation (building upon amplification and mixing) are used by Roma professional musicians as techniques to “enchant” both the performance places and the social relations which they host.

No matter what it is applied to—in a stunning turn, a complicated motif, a very fast solo, a dangerous acrobatic move, a machine that is particularly good at performing certain operations—, virtuosity evokes a kind of empowerment and self-celebration of technique, while also to some extent being the sublimation or surpassing of this. Taking examples from worlds that are rarely confronted, this issue sets out to show how the “facts of virtuosity” enable us to think differently about the relationship between art and technique.

This article focuses on a type of virtuosity which involves the imitation of non-musical sounds in the context of musical performances. It attempts to describe the modalities of these moments of acrobatics in bluegrass and country music in North America. To highlight the historical evolution of this virtuosity system, the analysis follows the transformation of a particular melody, known as the Orange Blossom Special, which remains to this day one of the most famous imitations of trains in North American music.

Abstract

This article explores the ethical ideas that underpin the practice of professional Gypsy musicians in Eastern Europe and, more particularly, in Romania. These musicians present themselves as "creators of emotion" and frequently attribute their economic success to such values as "trickery" or "guile". A good musician should be an "intelligent thief", both in his interactions with his peers and with the melodies themselves. Virtuosi play with "trickery" and these tricks can also be "stolen" by other musicians.

People who use this vocabulary of theft do not condemn it, but distinguish between the theft of musical ideas and that of material possessions. Although they are professional musicians who consider their music to be a commercial undertaking, they remain sceptical as to usefulness of copyright or "intellectual property rights". What then does it mean to "steal" tricks if they belong to nobody? How is this thief's dexterity related to ideas of creativity? What sort of economic and moral models do these musicians hold to? And how does it relate to notions of copyright?

To inquire into the techniques of attraction and fascination used in several crafts in the Moldavian region of Romania, three different types of objects are compared : the eggs painted and exchanged for Easter, the fabrics woven on draw-looms, and the melodies played by brass bands of professional musicians. Despite their different modes of existence, these objects share the same techniques of creation in that they are based on procedures for composing interlocking motifs. Each in its own way defies the perceiver's ability to analyze them, and is seen as a « thought trap ». This ethnological study of the production and uses of these three types of objects tries to grasp the general principle that accounts for their power to fascinate.

Shared Music and Minority Identities, Proceedings of the 3rd Meeting of the Study Group "Music and Minorities" of the International Folk Music Council, ed. by Naila Ceribasic and Erica Haskell, Zagreb: Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research, p. 189-200.